Just before lunch service, Veronica takes a short break in the front corner of the cabin, next to the kitchen… Wind is what she misses most, up in the sky. The airplane air isn’t as bad as passengers say it is; she never likes when people spout opinions without bothering to gather the facts first. Airplanes take about 50 percent of the air collected in the outtake valves of the passenger compartment and mix it with fresh air from outside. The air is then passed through filters to be sterilized before it’s introduced to the passengers. So the air on the plane is clean, and not worthy of complaint, but still, Veronica can taste the effort in it. Every time she leaves an airport, she appreciates the unpredictability of each inhale. There might be a soft gust of wind, or the smell of popcorn, or the heaviness that precedes a rainstorm. She notices nuances in the air that everyone else is immune to, with the exception of submariners, probably, and astronauts. People for whom the earth is not enough; their freedom is off the ground. Veronica enjoys the unbridled nature of the outside world in small doses, but this is her home. She is the fullest version of herself at thirty thousand feet.
~ Ann Napolitano, Dear Edward: A Novel (The Dial Press, January 6, 2020)
Highly Recommended.
Notes:
- An Amazon Best Book of the Month (January 2020)
- NY Times Book Review: A Plane Goes Down, Killing 191. Only a 12-Year-Old Survives.
- NY Times 12 New Books We Recommend this Week (Jan 23, 2020)
